User reviews

I'm only writing a review to share the humorist Erma Bombeck's observation.

In one of her last columns before her passing, she mentioned that she and her husband had gone to see this movie.

As they were driving home, her husband asked "Well? Would you?" "Would I what?" she asked.

"Would you sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars?" "It depends," she said.

Her husband was shocked. "DEPENDS?" he choked. "Depends on WHAT?" "Depends on whether he'd let me make monthly payments..." she replied.

I passed root beer through my nose when I read that - had to share.

Adrian Lyne does what he does beautifully, whatever that is. The gorgeous look of his films hide a serious lack of depth and a rather Machiavellian knack for attracting us, the natives, with shiny pretty things. We fall for it every time, or almost, we couldn't swallow Lolita, oh no, he should have left Lolita alone and shouldn't have made that outrageous statement, remember? "James Mason was all wrong in Kubrick's version of the Nabokov novel" Do me a favor Mr. Lyne, stick to "Flashdance" and suffer all the way to the bank. Sorry, I lost myself for a moment. Where was I? Oh yes "Inidecent Proposal" Imagine that premise in the hands of someone with serious intentions. A young happy couple and the devil. The stranger who, incapable of bearing goodness and happiness, decides to destroy it. Aware of their needs, he presents a solution to their problems. He doesn't care for her, he cares about their destruction. Juicy stuff. But, although Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson are great as the perfect foil for the devil's designs, the devil is Robert Redford. Mr. Redford is a personal hero of mine, instead of resting in his laurels, Sundance, the environment, Ordinary People, Quiz Show and so on and so on. But, I heard him say in a Charlie Rose interview that he would like to play different characters, dangerous, dark but nobody offered him that kind of part. What about this one Bob? This was a part that could transform this pretty candy floss into a classic. It needed guts. Where was the darkness? I looked into Redford eyes and I saw Redford. I would have gone with him for much less than a million bucks because in spite of the fact that involved accepting an indecent proposal there was no danger, really. He allows himself to be Redford all the way. The indecency is in the title in the gimmick but not in the spirit. As a result none of the promises are fulfilled and we're left with a pretty inconsequential movie. Oh well, I hope Mr Lyne learned his lesson. One never bad mouths James Mason, okay?

Provocative premise receives stylish treatment from director Adrian Lyne; this film has a luxurious, almost sensuous texture, part of which comes from the ultra-glossy cinematography, and part from Demi Moore, who was at the time at the peak of her beauty and at the top of the world in her career (her hairstyle is amazing in this film). Oliver Platt, as the comic relief, gets in some funny lines. But the movie is not all surface - there is plenty of food for discussion in its themes, if one is so inclined. *** out of 4.

INDECENT PROPOSAL is a great example of a great premise for a movie - Would you allow your wife to sleep with a complete stranger for one million dollars ? and it's not too difficult to understand why this movie was so talked about on its initial release . Well would you ?

The one problem that the movie suffers from is that Robert Redford was cast as John Gage , the middle aged billionaire who desires the company of Demi Moore's character Diane Murphy . Robert Redford who aged in his mid fifties looks about ten years younger and who still female fans to this day . One can't help thinking that Adrian Lyne would have been far better off exploiting the premise further by casting a much more physically repulsive actor as Gage . Some defenders may claim that Redford equals good box office and certainly this movie did superbly as far as world wide receipt's go , but it's a movie whose main selling point must be the simple central idea and would have perhaps ended up a much better film . It's interesting to note that when women in their late 30s to early 50s answer the question " Would you ? " they usually end up replying " Robert Redford ! I'd go to bed with him for free " .

INDECENT PROPOSAL isn't a great movie despite the great premise and I found Lyne's directing style a bit too 1980s with a couple of scenes that are a bit too pop video for my liking but despite not being the greatest actors in the history of cinema both Moore and Woody Harrelson do enough to make the audience feel for their characters who find themselves in a dilemma . Yeah maybe it's Hollywood trash but it's engaging Hollywood trash

Don't know why America is so hung up on sex Acting prudish when sexualy hiding so much Heck I would sleep with him for a million dollars no problem and I am a married man. Obviously I'm European .

The most notable thing about Indecent Proposal is the appearance of Robert Redford in a kind of villainous role. He's the man who makes the Indecent Proposal to Demi Moore to spend a night of nights. She and husband Woody Harrelson will get a really large sum of money, more than enough to take them out of financial quagmire they're in as a result of the boom of the Eighties souring off during the presidency of Bush 41.

Back during the reign of Charles II and other monarchs in other countries were guilty of the same thing, Charles as we know had a voracious sexual appetite. Husbands regularly pushed their wives on to the King's attention in hopes of advancement. And Charles himself married off many a discarded mistress. The fabulously wealthy Redford no doubt sees himself with that same kind of power.

But an example closer to Hollywood would involve the triangle of David O. Selznick, Jennifer Jones, and her first husband Robert Walker. When Selznick was smitten with Jones he never let the fact that she was already married deter him a bit. He courted her in a similar manner that Redford courts Moore. Who could resist and her this millionaire has the looks and charm of Robert Redford. What's someone like Harrelson to do?

I'm sure the fact that he was not playing a good guy is what perked Redford's interest in this part. He does it well, but his public sure never wanted him in these kinds of roles.

The three stars all do well in this film. Indecent Proposal asks some very disturbing questions about the price and value of human beings.

Let's be honest, ladies; Indecent Proposal should have had a different title. Demi Moore is happily married to Woody Harrrelson. They have a great relationship and a great sex life, but they're poor. Then, millionaire Robert Redford offers Woody one million dollars for one night with his wife. Wouldn't it make more sense if the movie was titled Every Woman's Fantasy?

This romantic drama is a pretty famous one, so if you're a fan of any of the three leads, or if you like classic romances, you'll want to add this to your list. It's great to watch with bottles of wine and your girlfriends, or with bottles of wine and your sweetie pie. It's incredibly steamy, and it'll give you plenty to talk about afterwards. I still haven't made up my mind whether I'd pick Bob or Woody! It's definitely a chick flick, though. I have yet to meet a man who actually liked this movie. Men can get surprisingly territorial once they're posed with the question of how much money they'd accept to let a gorgeous, handsome millionaire sleep with their wife. Go figure.

Demi and Woody are married, but they're poor. They meet Robert Redford, and he's REALLY rich. He takes a fancy to Demi, and since he's a gambling man he makes the couple an "indecent proposal:" one million dollars for a night with the little woman.

At this point you need watch no more of the film because you can put the details together in your sleep. Of course Demi is going to accept the offer. If she doesn't there's no first half of the movie. Of course it will affect Demi and Woody's marriage. If it doesn't there's no second half of the movie. And of course everything will turn out okay by the time the credits roll. If it doesn't, there's no happy ending for the sake of box office.

The absolute best thing you can say about INDECENT PROPOSAL is that Demi Moore looks good in a black dress. As for the rest... The script is incompetent, the direction amateurish, the performances negligible. I suspect Redford, Moore, and Harrelson blush and change the subject every time the film is mentioned. Do them--and more importantly yourself--a favor. Unless some one offers you a million... Miss It!

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Wow, I am a little surprised by the rating. Only 5.3? Come on, this was a good movie! Was it the best? No, but it's better than most I have seen. If you were offered a million dollars, could the strength of your relationship survive it? I really got into this movie, because I knew how it would damage the couple's life. I think that they did deeply love each other, but they mention how they were childhood sweethearts, and kind of rushed into marriage. So, the point is, they've probably never been able to question if they had feelings for anyone else.

Struggling financially is horrible. How far would you go to get some money? People will go the distance and sometimes take a front seat with the devil! "Indecent Proposal" goes all the way and shakes up human emotions. I really felt that this was a very good movie and should be watched. 5.3 is a little harsh, what was so bad about it?

8/10

Interesting drama! This is what we miss these days, good expressive eyes and acting. Kudos to nighties makers and the cast.

This movie, like "The Purge", has a concept that I found so repulsive yet so compelling. Two things can be equally true. The idea of pimping out your wife, for any amount of money, is repulsive, but watching what unfolds when someone pimps out his wife is compelling.

Who did what?

Billionaire John Gage (Robert Redford) offered David (Woody Harrelson) and Diana Murphy (Demi Moore) $1M if he could have one night with Diana. They were on such financial hard times that this "indecent proposal" would be the answer to their economic dreams. It only started their marital nightmare.

Hypothetically discussing a matter and actually living with that decision is two different things. Like many have said before, "It sounded good at the time." David instantly regretted agreeing to the proposal. Though they swore to never discuss it David couldn't leave the matter alone. And who could? He had the precise questions any self-respecting man would have:

"What did you do?"

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Do you think about him?"

There's no way a relationship can continue normally from that point forward. Whereas the woman may feel confident in her love of her husband and be able to move forward, in that respect she's holding all the cards. She knows what she did. She knows if she liked it or not. And she knows how deep her love is for her husband. Hubby, on the other hand, can only speculate, and speculation doesn't make for a strong, long-lasting relationship.

"Indecent Proposal" tested the theory of "money can buy you anything." Even though money got John Gage in the door, it was his persistence and his charm that got him further.

"Indecent Proposal" also tested the supposed unbreakable bond of love. So many love stories have love bringing people back to life, giving people supernatural strength, or being an impregnable force. In "Indecent Proposal" their bond was reduced to tatters. So, even though they may have still loved each other, the trust was gone. And like Tina said, "What's love got to do with it?"

A struggling married couple (Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson) lose all their money in Las Vegas. Whilst there, they meet a charismatic billionaire (Robert Redford) who offers them one million dollars for one night with the wife.

Demi Moore has never looked better than she did in 'Indecent Proposal' so it's easy to see why Redford would be willing to pay $1,000,000 to spend one night with her, and Redford is very charming here, despite what is a very sleazy offer.

But it's Harrelson who is the stand out performer for me, I'd only seen him in the TV show 'Cheers' and the comedy 'White Men Can't Jump' the previous year and was very surprised and impressed with his performance here as the tortured husband.

Seymour Cassel and Oliver Platt are good supporting players worthy of mention, and I must also mention the score by John Barry is hauntingly beautiful.

Demi and Woody play a struggling married couple who go to Las Vegas on a gambling run and meet up with rich guy Redford who is so smitten with Demi(??) that he offers her $1 million for a night with her. Of course, the couple fights about it and the decision made doesn't help either.

A good movie, but nothing special. 6 of 10

Cotton candy involving a loving couple (bordering on good buddies) who lose their shirts in Las Vegas but get a chance to recoup when a world-famous billionaire makes a play for the wife--with booty attached! Great set-up for a story that takes a slow spiral downward once the couple returns home (to a rather lovely cottage in Southern California). Some sparks from principals Robert Redford and Demi Moore, but Woody Harrelson is out of his league and Adrian Lyne's direction is all visual and nothing much upstairs (and I could've done without the horse-racing video suddenly morphing into a shot of Demi in "the act"). The film is shamefully enjoyable, and capped with teen-romance fever, but aren't these characters a little old for moony-eyed puppy love? ** from ****

Can it be more dangerous?! I still enjoy Mr John Barry's great composing! I had to buy it as a CD! With he still compose from his heart! Best regards! Maths Sweden.

What would you do if a billionaire were consenting to pay you one million dollars (or more) for one night with your wife? This is the titular "Indecent Proposal", on which millions of viewers, men and women, have been debating for years, placing themselves in the same tricky situation than David (Woody Harrelson) and Diana (Demi Moore), the ill-fated couple who met the devilishly sexy John Gage (Robert Redford) in Las Vegas.

I remember when I was younger; there was a guy in my neighborhood who told me that in every woman, there was a potential prostitute. To confront him to his own contradictions, I carefully asked him whether that statement also applied to his family. The cynical macho nodded but felt the need to reformulate his thought, he meant that there was no woman in the world who wouldn't sleep with a man if she needed something, that's "potential prostitution" and I must confess I was almost convinced. And "Indecent Proposal" is all the more interesting because it confronts this option not to a woman, but a couple. The husband is part of the game and that's the strike of genius some distracted critics failed to grasp.

Think about it: did Jack Engelheard, the author of the original novel of the same name, take for granted that a single woman wouldn't have thought twice before accepting the deal? I bet he did and I happen to think the same. Refusing wouldn't be honorable but stupid, and I'm sure many women would agree with me. We're speaking of one million dollars for a sumptuous night, and not with the ugliest man in the world. I bet when today's women visualize the myth of the Charming Prince, they rather picture Robert Redford (or Brad Pitt) as a billionaire than the nameless Princes of Disney classics. We'd all need money to achieve our dreams and selling one's soul for one night with one handsome rich guy and one million dollars isn't too high a price.

But the film is cleverly provocative because it already admits the venal nature of women, which provoked the anger of feminists. But I'd love to see them in Diana's heels. The question isn't whether they would have accepted the night for one million, but how about two or ten, how high could John Gage raise the stakes before they'd say yes? That was the point and we got it, money can buy a body, but how about love? It all comes to David. And that's the subtlety the angry mob of feminists missed just like the intellectually eminent critics: the film also highlights the very hypocrisy of men who brand any woman who sleeps with other men as 'broad' or 'whore', by confronting them to the same situation. And I would have loved to ask the question to my macho friend, what if he was in David's place? Wouldn't there be, after all, in every husband or boyfriend, a "potential pimp"?

To answer that, watching the film isn't even necessary, it's all part of cinematic pop-culture, and we all have an opinion on the subject. In fact, if Adrian Lyne's film had one merit, it was to feature one of the most memorable premises of Cinema's history and handle it with a believable mix of realism and romanticism. It is crucial within the context of the film, because the theme is so sleazy it had to be washed up by a poignant love story. And on that level, the chemistry between Harrelson and Moore worked and built our empathy toward this couple of sweethearts, watching the ashes of their fantasy dreams gone with the wind of the 90's crisis. In many other films, that the husband is an architect and the wife a real estate agent would only be details, but they're pivotal factd in "Indecent Proposal".

Indeed, after the bursting of the US housing bubble, there was no offer for Diana and no demand for David. Inevitably, their descent into poverty guide their hopes toward Las Vegas, an interesting setting where two worlds coexist: people who need money and can't afford losing, and those who've got enough to lose one million a night without even caring. The film even succeeds to make a brilliant social commentary, behind the appearance of a cheap soft-porn flick; it subtly denounces the pervert aspects of liberalism, where free trade is synonym of salvation at the expenses of principles, totally worthless when money is at stakes. And the world sunk into liberal lows so eagerly it ended up giving a price to anything, and people have been so effectively brainwashed by greed and lust they would look now, at the half-full glass. Isn't there one word to say 'crisis' and 'opportunity' in Chinese?

I live in a country where many beautiful girls, students or salaried, go out with mature men, because they buy them things they can't afford. Basically, they use their charm as an asset to overcome material problems. It's certainly what lured my macho friend into his certitude. But when you take the plot to a larger scope, you realize it's less the selling-your- body dilemma than the eternal selling-the-soul-to-the-devil story, doing something morally wrong for a pay-off. Movies are made to provide some interesting 'what if' situations? What if we lived the same day again and again? What if we hadn't existed? "Indecent Proposal" is the ultimate 'what if' asker because this time, we can respond to the plot and relate to the protagonists, even more because we live in a similar economic context, and the world is crazy enough to feature such characters as John Gage. And Redford finds the perfect tone for his character: subtly obnoxious but always charming, one hell of a tempter!

And I guess part of the fascination doesn't come from our relief not to be in David and Diana's shoes but from our regret. And that, my friends, is pure subversive brilliance!

I believe that the theme of Indecent Proposal is that it is not worth even one million dollars to have an affair on your spouse as everyone involved suffers major emotional, financial, and spiritual consequences as they did in this film. The plot involves three main characters. Woody Harrelson plays David Murphy, Demi Moore plays Diana Murphy, and Robert Redford plays John Gage.

David and Diana are a young married couple who are very much in love. They both have promising careers as David is a talented architect and Diana is are a real estate broker. However, they run into some financial hardships and decide to try to win money in Las Vegas. They end up meeting John Gage who happens to be a billionaire. He offers a large sum of money to be with Diana for one night.

Without giving away the ending, I'll just say that it becomes complicated as there are emotional and relational consequences for David, Diana, and David's decisions. The story unfolds in a somewhat unpredictable manner and takes us through the struggles of money troubles and relationship conflicts with all three characters. The film points out in an indirect manner the mistakes that all three characters make. There is betrayal in an emotional sense and the movie makes us ask ourselves what I can do in my relationships so I don't have any regrets.

Other plot points include the moral dilemma they both encounter. David and Diana are in a loving, faithful marriage but are faced with a proposal that is difficult to refuse. They both understand that they could really use $1 million right now. At first they both say that they don't want to do it but Diana says that she would do it for him and their future. She says to David that it would be just sex and that they would have they money for a lifetime. It is an especially tough decision as their mortgage payments are behind and they find themselves financially desperate.

In the movie Basic Instinct which stars Michael Douglas as detective Nick Curran and Sharon Stone who plays Catherine Tramell, there is a similar theme as Indecent Proposal. This is because while Curran is investigating a murder, he becomes involved in a passionate and emotional relationship with Catherine who happens to be the prime suspect. This passionate affair is similar to the one that John and Diana had in Indecent Proposal.

The lighting in the film Indecent Proposal was dimly light and sometimes even seemed as though there was smoke in the room. This can equate to the confusion or mysterious man behind the proposal who happened to be John Gage the billionaire. It can also symbolize the indecisiveness of this major decision that David and Diana needed to make and also illustrate the mess that resulted in their decision.

The camera angles in Indecent Proposal made John Gage's character seem to be larger than life. They did this by not having a lot of empty space when they shoot him and used close-ups to make him seem powerful which he was. He had this position of power because he had a great deal of money and also power over David and Diana. The angles that they used to shoot David were just the opposite. It seemed as though they wanted to diminish David's character because there were not as many close- ups nor were there many shoots to make him look important or powerful. This is because of the position he was in with Gage having power over him and Diana.

This was a movie that is for adults as there are sex scenes and foul language used. The film shows us how a decision about accepting money can change the nature of a healthy relationship. It also shows that money is not more important than remaining faithful to your spouse. This movie points out how the idea of how having money can be detrimental in many ways. This includes finances, relationships, trust and betrayal.